The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a formal investigation into Tesla's Cybercab within hours of the vehicle's first public rides in Austin, Texas, on September 3, 20262,8. The probe covers up to 1,000 Cybercab vehicles and examines the process and technical data Tesla used to self-certify the two-seat robotaxi as compliant with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, despite the vehicle lacking a steering wheel, brake pedal, accelerator pedal, and side-view mirrors.
"NHTSA fully supports the safe development and deployment of automated vehicles. But as the federal regulator, we need to ensure that all of our laws are followed," NHTSA administrator Jonathan Morrison said in a statement. The agency said it will consider the extent to which Tesla's certification depended on determinations that certain federal motor vehicle safety standards do not apply to the Cybercab because of its unconventional design.
Federal vehicle safety regulations currently require manual controls such as brake pedals, though the Department of Transportation has proposed removing those requirements for vehicles designed to be autonomously driven. Those proposed rule changes have not been finalized, meaning existing standards remain legally binding.
Tesla held a private launch event on Thursday, September 3, at ACL Live in downtown Austin6. The event was aimed primarily at employees and was not livestreamed. CEO Elon Musk did not appear at the event. Following free demo rides for attendees, Tesla opened paid Cybercab rides to the public the next day, initially scheduling access for 5 p.m. CT on September 4 before moving it up to 2 p.m. CT due to high demand. The Tesla Robotaxi app reached No. 1 on the App Store in the Travel category within hours.
The gold-colored Cybercab is a purpose-built, two-seat autonomous vehicle with gull-wing doors, a 22-inch central touchscreen, and a camera-based vision system rather than radar or lidar9,13. It is Tesla's first vehicle to use brake-by-wire technology. Riders book through the same Robotaxi app used for Model Y robotaxis and cannot select a Cybercab specifically; the vehicle is assigned based on passenger count and availability10.
Cybercab rides are currently limited to parts of Austin. Tesla's broader Robotaxi service, using Model Y vehicles, operates in limited areas of Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. As of September 3, Tesla had 420 autonomous vehicles registered in Texas, 45 of which were Cybercabs12. According to one tally, 220 robotaxis and 9 Cybercabs were operating unsupervised at the time of the count.
Tesla's safety plan filed with Texas officials acknowledges that first responders who encounter a stalled or crashed Cybercab may need to physically push the vehicle because there is no steering wheel or pedals to drive it out of the way5. Children under 13 are barred from riding in the Cybercab, and passengers under 18 must be accompanied by an adult.
The Cybercab's Austin launch was originally intended for June 2025 but was delayed to September 2026. Musk first showed the vehicle at Tesla's "We, Robot" event in October 2024. Tesla started manufacturing the Cybercab in April 2026 and has built capacity for up to 125,000 units per year.
The regulatory path Tesla chose differs from that of Amazon-owned Zoox, which filed for a temporary exemption from eight FMVSS requirements for its own steering-wheel-free robotaxi and received final approval in July 2026, subject to a 2,500-vehicle-per-year cap. Tesla never submitted an exemption petition, instead self-certifying the Cybercab as fully compliant.
ANALYSIS Tesla's decision to self-certify rather than seek an exemption removes the 2,500-vehicle annual cap that constrains Zoox but exposes the company to the kind of federal scrutiny now underway, with the investigation's outcome likely to shape how other manufacturers approach driverless-vehicle certification.